🚀 go-pugleaf

>    The main point I want to make is that you NEED the shuttle to build
> the space station.

My coworkers and I were discussing this yesterday (we're designing the
Space Station solar arrays). Isn't the shuttle the primary reason Space
Station Freedom is being built and deployed in a relatively low orbit?
That's what I always understood. And let me tell you, that is a *big*
problem, in terms of an environment that has too much debris and is hostile
(corrosive) to organic materials--such as composites and most lubricants.
Granted, we didn't know all of this until LDEF was retrieved.

What would it have taken (too late now) to build Freedom in a higher orbit?
More shuttle flights, at less cargo per flight? Or another launch vehicle
altogether, like Shuttle/C or NLS?

What ever happened to Shuttle/C? When I worked for Rockwell five years ago,
that sounded like a viable alternative.

_____________________________________________________________________________
-Mark Johnson                              
mjohnson@jedi.decnet.lockheed.com